This nutritionist turned her blog into a business that started with 1 PDF.
Today I have one of my incredible clients again, who we did an interview with a couple of years ago, Edurne Ubani from evamuerdelamanzana.com. Her progress and her wins are always astounding. So every time I chat with her, I'm like we need to record this again.
Listen in and I hope you love it!
Prefer to read? Here’s the transcript of my interview with Edurne Ubani.
Sylvie: Welcome everybody, it's Sylvie McCracken from sylviemccracken.com, and today I have one of my incredible clients again, who we did an interview with a couple of years ago, Edurne Ubani from evamuerdelamanzana.com, which I'll totally type and link right below this video. Welcome Edurne.
Edurne: Hi Sylvie so good to be here again.
Sylvie: I'm so happy to have you. You guys, if you'd seen my interview with Edurne, which we'll also link below from a couple of years ago, I reached out to Edurne again ‘cos we stay in contact and we've become friends over the years after working together a couple of times. And her progress and her wins are always astounding. So every time I chat with her, I'm like we need to record this again. So I'm so glad that we have finally made it work in our schedule, even across the pond. Edurne is in Spain and I'm here in the US. So sometimes that logistics takes a little while on both of our parts. But thank you so much for being here Edurne and for sharing your story with everyone.
Edurne: I'm so happy to be here.
Sylvie: Okay I want to kind of give people a little bit of a recap and of course we'll link the other interview below in case anyone wants to catch up on that as well. But Edurne and I worked together, she joined my program that doesn't even exist anymore in December of 2015, so now almost 2 and half years ago, and it was Creating Passive Income with Ebooks and we have a different program on that same topic today, that looks a lot different. But she was one of the clients that well first of all the only client that was in our program to write an eBook in Spanish. So that was fantastic and really put my copywriting skills to the test there when it came to titling and everything else. But also then later we worked together again in 2017 on our Streamline and Scale program in order to take it to the next level. And so I wanted Edurne, if you could kind of, first of all take us back to give a little bit of a recap of where you were in 2015 and what you were thinking, and where your business was at if you even remember, what the revenue was in your business at that time.
Edurne: Right, so back at 2015, I was a real food blogger. And I'd been a real food blogger for around 3 years. And it was a hobby. It was a very time consuming hobby. I'd write lots of blog posts, lots of recipes, lots of everything and that was basically through evamuerdelamanzana, zero revenue, zilch.
Sylvie: Yeah okay, you've told me that before and I already forgot, okay.
Edurne: So apart from a few affiliate sales from Amazon and basically nothing.
Sylvie: Typical hobby latte money. We call it latte money.
Edurne: Yeah basically, basically. It was fun. I love writing recipes and I love sharing things. But it was a hobby. And on the side to evamuerdelamanzana, I had and I still have an eCommerce, which I can't remember the revenue, but it wasn't great. It wasn't that much of a hobby, but my mindset was in complete hobby mode. It was meant to be a business, and it really wasn't much of a business. And that's where I was at.
Sylvie: I love you show that and I love that how much the word mindset kind of comes into play in your, every time we talk, in every conversation. What I want to highlight for people is because we talk about mindset a lot in every one of my programs, Module 1 is mindset. There is no way to escape it, there is no way to skip it. And the reason for that is because it's a foundation in every single thing that we do in life, but also in businesses, actually in businesses we are going to the next level. So what I want to, kind of, also as we talk about revenue, where you were at essentially almost zero in revenue then. So your mindset was in that hobby mindset. When we did that work together first on your eBook, if you can give people the cliff notes or the small nuggets of what was the biggest thing that happened to you during that time, during that 8 weeks of the program and then maybe the 3 months that it took you to kind of really launch and really go forth with that project.
Edurne: It was fun because a couple of months before joining the program, I thought hey you know I'm good at recipes and I should maybe write an eBook. So my head started thinking about what can I do? Then okay meal plans, recipes, and then suddenly in December I saw, I think it was an email from you talking about your program. And I thought hey great timing. Maybe I should join. And I watched one of your webinars and I said hey, whatever, I'll join. But I wasn't too, I like being guided, so I thought okay if this woman she's written a few eBooks. She knows what she is talking about, she can probably tell me how to organize things, how to structure things, what program to edit things with. I mean that was a bit, my thoughts at that time. I joined your program. And of course the first module was mindset. And I really wasn't expecting that ‘cos I was like, I joined this program to learn to write an eBook. What is she going on about? But I just stuck with it ‘cos as I say, I'm a good student, I go through things. And suddenly something clicked. It wasn't like a huge revelation like I suddenly thought hey you know I understand everything now. But something started to move, gears started to shift. And I continued working with, I worked on my eBook and well, when I started thinking about this eBook and I mentioned it in the group you were in, my idea was, I don't know I'm gonna sell it for 10 euros, 12 euros maybe, but I think that's a lot. I remember your reply and you were like, “you can't do this”.
Sylvie: I tend to start it with that.
Edurne: I remember my struggle to actually think of ‘cos for me 12 euros was like crazy money for an ebook. And that really when things started to shift. Like my work's good. The quality of what I'm doing is good. So why shouldn't I? And I was scared, I was really, really scared. But anyway shift a few months forward. I finally launched the eBook. And it was amazing. I had a really, really, really small list at that time.
Sylvie: I remember, it was like 2500 or 2000 something.
Edurne: Yeah and I mean the results were amazing. And at that moment I thought, if I can do this with an ebook, what can't I do?
Sylvie: I love that because I remember the results. I think it was, was it 30 days or 90 days? I'm already getting fuzzy on the memory, but I remember it being like 25,000 euros, which is about 30 US, which is pretty freaking incredible. Now for people that have a list size of zero, they might be thinking 2000, 2500, that sounds like a big list. Well trust me, you can get there at no time. And also it's really not. But fast forward to today, where your list is over 15,000 and we'll talk about your current revenue in a second, but it's just when you look back on that, you are like, ah that was cute you know.
Edurne: It was cute, but it was the beginning of something big. It wasn't just the actual revenue, which was amazing. It was amazing ‘cos I would've never, this was a hobby up until a few months back. Being able to generate that amount of revenues like “wow, I can do it”. But it wasn't that. It was the shift that happened in here. And I've said it before and I think I said it in my first interview with you, I'll be forever grateful to you for helping me shift that mindset from hobbyist and blogger to business owner and I owe that completely to you. Basically I've continued working on this and I've continued working with other people but the person who is responsible for making me change that mindset is you. And what happened during your program there was a little bonus for building a team. And that bonus was huge for me. That was huge ‘cos up until then I was like, in Spanish we say Juan Palomo. Juan Palomo is the guy…
Sylvie: Jack of all trades.
Edurne: Yeah, basically do everything.
Sylvie: Which is a classic. It's a classic solopreneur. You answer the phones, you paint the walls, and you also sell the book.
Edurne: Everything, everything. And my mindset up until then was like of course I'm not gonna pay someone else to do this. ‘cos it's gonna cost me money. What do you think? I can do it. And when I started watching that bonus, I was like “ah okay, things have really got to change”. And I'm now up to two full time team members.
Sylvie: Oh my god that's amazing and huge.
Edurne: It's huge, it's huge. It's taking me a little bit to get there because I did try at first. I failed a bit, because I didn't follow your advice. I confess, I confess.
Sylvie: Confess your sins yes.
Edurne: I was eager to..
Sylvie: Get it done.
Edurne: Get it done, but I remember you said to me, hire slow fire fast. And I didn't do that at first, it was a bit tough.
Sylvie: Sometimes that's how you anchor in those lessons right. You got to get it wrong a couple of times. But guess what, another one, and thank you so much for that compliment Edurne. I really appreciate that and I feel so honored to be a part of your journey, but what I want to really mirror back to people in case anyone might have the delusion that there's some sort of magic push button situation, you know our program works, our program is great. But what I want to reflect back to people is how what Edurne is kind of mentioning is how she really showed up coachable. She found that first, that first mindset module and was like, I don't know what this is about but didn't say alright, let me just wait till it's over and get to the other stuff that I'm here for. She really opened her mind and said “alright, I came here to learn let me learn”. That's something that back then we wouldn't even filtering for, so the universe just sent us you out of the sky. Nowadays, we do not even take any one as clients that we don't think is going to be coachable. Period, end of story.
Edurne: I love that.
Sylvie: It's just what is required if you are not here to do the work, whatever, so I wanna mirror that in you because I think we've all been guilty at one point or another of thinking whatever, thinking we don't have to listen or we know everything already or some of those little mistakes. So what I love about you is not only back then, but then we also worked on Streamline and Scale last year and you really showed up every single step of the way, with the resourceful attitude of like I have a challenge, how do I get around it. Not kind of letting it crush you. Making a couple of bad hires, cool. How do we get around it? How do we learn from that? So really want to highlight that to people because ultimately that is what has really made you successful. Has been that coachable and resourceful attitude and really that commitment to success, where success is your only option. There is no way out. It's just a matter of what is that path gonna look like and it's usually not a very straight path. It's more like this. It trends, so that's what I really want to highlight to people because that is ultimately what not only has gotten you this far, but what makes me a 100% certain that you will go 10x from here as well. There's nothing stopping you because once with that attitude, there is just no way to fail essentially.
Edurne: Sounds great.
Sylvie: That is amazing. So in that journey, so back in the day so you had the eCommerce business which was you were probably earning ‘cos I know shipping products and all of that kind of jazz, that's legit work. That is a legit job. So I'm sure you were the lowest paid employee but then fast forward to date, your revenue right now monthly is, is it 25 to 30,000 euros per month?
Edurne: Yeah that's correct.
Sylvie: Which I don't even know what that's in dollars today, but it's a lot of freaking money. That's over a quarter million-euro business essentially. That's a hell of a transition. Can you kind of walk me through a couple of the biggest hurdles in your journey from a hobby blogger to a, we should probably do the math. What is 25 to 30,000 in dollars? Do you know?
Edurne: Actually no I don't.
Sylvie: Okay whatever. That's okay so to upwards of a quarter million-euro business is good enough. What would you say are couple of the biggest hurdles that you had in that transition?
Edurne: Probably myself. Mindset is something that you don't do once. It's like having a shower or brushing your teeth. And I've worked on it a lot. And still, things come up and you want to ignore it and you think hey you know these problems are coming up, and I have to deal with this. No it's your own, there's a book that I read every year, which you recommended, which is The Big Leap. That's an amazing, amazing, amazing book and I always go back to this, when I am finding that resistance. When I seeing that things are just not moving forward, because I'm stubbornly keeping, keeping low. So I'd probably say that my biggest barrier is still myself, but I do realize that it is right now, whereas I didn't before. So I can stop and work on it. What happened when I was working with you in 2017 was that, if you remember, I was actually starting to work on a project that I wanted to launch. And I never launched this project.
Sylvie: Yeah I remember.
Edurne: I was finding a lot of resistance. There were a lot of problems raising. If you remember our coaching calls, it was like I can't find this and I need this and I need the other. And suddenly I realized that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. As well as one of the barriers being myself. One of the great things that I have is myself. So I'm both…
Sylvie: It's exactly right, that is exactly right.
Edurne: I'd actually worked on this program, I'd done very, very big part of this program, but when I realized this was something that wasn't going to work at least at that moment. I didn't say, “hey Edurne, carry on, because you've already done so much. You should finish”. At that point, I realized it just wasn't going to work. At that point, I wasn't scared of saying okay stop right there, rethink everything you're doing and start off and I'm so happy I did.
Sylvie: And that's I think the big takeaway because what I like to say is that challenges are guaranteed in business. I mean it's not that the, this is not the good news. This is not the good news. But challenges are guaranteed in business, but the question is how are you going to face them? How are you going to overcome them? And I think for you that's the biggest distinction is in the face of challenges, you don't stop everything and quit and decide, I'm gonna go work at Starbucks, which is my classic joke for when it's hard it's like just quit and go work at Starbucks. You instead just analyze, you step back, whatever, and pick it up and pick your path and then you commit to that and go all in. So I absolutely love that and it's amazing to me is how also right before we started recording, you were showing me your incredible sales page of your new product and everything else. And I was like, this looks beautiful, did you design it? And she's like no I don't do this anymore. And just I don't do my own design or whatever else anymore. I feel like Edurne, I don't even know if you know how incredible your growth has been and how you act like a business owner, you are a business owner, you have an incredibly successful business, you're employing other people. You are helping not only the lives of the people that you employ, but also the other piece which we like to talk about as well is the impact of the thousands and thousands of people that you're now helping, that are purchasing your eBook, your meal plans, your everything, your product, your physical products, and everything else, that is absolutely incredible. I want to honor you for really making that huge, huge change in the world in Spain and all of your products are Spanish speaking, and whatever else, but in the Spanish speaking world in general, (speaks foreign language) because I really, really think that that's that is a humongous ripple effect that you're having in the world, and I have no doubt that a lot of what you've learned and the growth that you've done is trickling into your products. Is there any example of where you use mindset in what you teach your clients as well?
Edurne: All the time, all the time.
Sylvie: I love that. Can you share how that kind of fits into your products and programs?
Edurne: Well what I've recently launched is a meal planning membership site. And you'd think hey meal plans, you get a weekly meal plan and you just sit and cook. Well the thing is people aren't gonna download your meal plans, and take them with them to their kitchen and sit there and, well not sit, you don't sit when you cook. But stand there for 2 to 3 hours and just cook magically. What I have built into, to this project is starting off with mindset. Starting off with the mindset shifts that you have to do to start thinking about how this is going to impact your life, both in terms of time, in terms of health, in terms of family, and basically everything I do before for the pre-launch of the membership, I also did a free mini eCourse. And the first lesson was mindset. Not copying anyone here, but…
Sylvie: I love it. I'm always like you know what, I see it all the time because people send in their mind maps for review and whatever, and 9 times out of 10, we see mindset and I'm like thrilled. Because I feel like that's really what I wanna do in the world is really I can impact so many more people through my hundreds of clients that are doing this work, that impacts tens of thousands each. And we've got people that are teaching on fibroids and people that are teaching on mental health and all kinds of different things that I'm not the expert in, so I absolutely adore that you're taking mindset and teaching that to your people. I think that that's incredible and the best, the best way you could honor the work that we've done, absolutely.
Edurne: I love it. I couldn't do without mindset in my own life and in my client's lives. What you said about the growth that I've experienced, I mean one thing is revenue, which is amazing. I'm just about to experience in a few days' time what it is to have that recurring ‘cos it's a monthly membership. What it is to have that recurring revenue field. But it's not just that what I'm seeing with what I've built with what I'm able to deliver to my clients with the team that I've built, which is absolutely amazing and I'm looking for a third team member.
Sylvie: I love it.
Edurne: Is the impact that my work can have now with all of these people, because before this, I also worked one-on-one with clients, with coaching clients. And it was really frustrating seeing how I wasn't able to multiply my time. I wasn't able to really make a difference to so many people, which is what I ultimately want to do. I've got around 900 people in my membership right now, but I'm aiming to much, much more, because I want to change their lives, ‘cos I'm already seeing this. We're just about 3, 4 weeks into the membership. And I'm already seeing the impact that my work is having on them. Even more than I could imagine. And I want to do this and I want to keep on doing this and to be able to do this, I need to have that team. I need to have these processes. I need to have everything in place so that I can just do what I'm best at. I know that there's things that I'm just not good at.
Sylvie: Well I love this. It's like a multi-faceted conversation because Edurne is referring to some of the frameworks that we've taught in our Streamline and Scale program, which is now a part of our yearlong mastermind, which we, after people work with us in the 8-week program they have a chance to work with us for a year long. There's so many different things, because on the one hand, I want to kind of stress that that program would've been completely inappropriate for you back in 2015, when you were just starting out. There's phases of business where in the beginning, you just need to make your first few bucks. You just need to go online. You just need to go pro. You just need to become profitable. And your mindset really was at that time was really getting yourself over that hurdle of charging $12, charging $20, $30 or whatever it was. Making some money, which then allowed you to A: be okay, and really not have to go out and get a job. And then to be able to think bigger, once you've built that muscle to that certain level you could start thinking of next level but next level business and mindset muscle. Nowadays, it's really about oh crap, there's only 24 hours in a day, and in order to really help hundreds of thousands of people, I should probably start thinking about a team and whatever else. So I wanna just highlight that for people who might be thinking well let me go straight to, how do I go from zero to a quarter million. Looks like well there's a process, what I also want to highlight for people is that the mindset came first. The revenue came after. There was no way to get to the revenue without that inner work. They say starting a business is the best personal development program you're ever gonna take, because…
Edurne: It is.
Sylvie: It will bring your stuff.
Edurne: It is, it totally is, and it impacts your personal life and it impacts the way you do things in your personal life. What I want to say is that it's not a straight line. I've had lots of ups, and I've had loads and loads of downs. But I think the difference is basically knowing that there is no other plan. When we talked, I don't know, just over a year ago I think you said to me, what happens if you can't do this? What happens if you're not able to do this? We were like it just can't happen.
Sylvie: That's the thing is you have to have that resolve because if there is an out, if there is a plan B, if there is a, well let's see what happens, it's not gonna happen.
Edurne: It's not an easy, and I know that I have so much ahead both really amazing things, which I know are ahead, but I know there's gonna be lots of resistance still and each new…
Sylvie: Level.
Edurne: Yeah, it's just gonna be, it's gonna be the same, but on a different level.
Sylvie: Yeah new level, same devil.
Edurne: I know I'm gonna have to continue working on this and I know it's always gonna be coming back to mindset. And there are times when I say hey you know wouldn't they be happier or maybe not happier but more relaxed if I had some job somewhere. Then I say well, what's going on, but it's not an easy road. There are some people who sell you do this and then you work from the beach.
Sylvie: Yeah.
Edurne: Maybe that will happen someday, but right now it's not gonna happen.
Sylvie: I find that the sand in the laptop is very uncomfortable.
Edurne: I would imagine, I would imagine.
Sylvie: I'm really glad you brought that up, because I want to highlight that to people and this is perhaps, this is not what the marketing gurus tell you to do, but quite frankly I want to showcase that it's work. There's no magic button. There's no magic solution. What Edurne has shown up and done is she's done the work. And part of the reason that, if God forbid something happened to you and you had to take 2 weeks off or whatever, the fact that you would be making passive income is because of you rolling up your sleeves and having put in the work to create that. It was not overnight, it was not necessarily easy and what I want to really showcase to people is in the face of challenge, you didn't quit. You could have multiple times, and you chose not to and that's really what differentiates the people that make it and make it consistently and on an ongoing long-term basis and actually right now you're really working on growth. You're not working on maintenance anymore. The quarter million is what it is. You're working on getting it to the next level and impacting hundreds of thousands of people. And so I wanna highlight that, but it really comes from you having rolled up your sleeves and worked for zero dollars an hour to create it. That is humongous Edurne. Thank you so much for sharing that. Is there anything else that you want to share to anyone listening that has not made their first dollar yet online? Perhaps they're in a one-on-one business. A lot of people that will be watching this are doctors or nutritionists or seeing one-on-one patients or clients, and they don't even have a website some of the time. They're thinking, that's great. It's easy for Edurne. But it feels overwhelming to start and have to with the list of zero, forget 2000. List of zero, website of zero, can I really do this? What if I don't have that, Edurne's personality or whatever, what would you wanna say to them?
Edurne: First I'd say, you don't need a website. I mean it's very…
Sylvie: That's true, you don't.
Edurne: Flashy and very great. And in fact I sometimes think that it's best to start with zero ‘cos when I started, I didn't start with zero, but I did start with a big handicap which was more than 3 years of giving free information, of giving free content, so when the time came to actually charge for content some people got, they didn't like it.
Sylvie: I remember that yeah.
Edurne: One piece of advice would be start charging early for something. Don't do this.
Sylvie: Not to mention how much money revenue you lost in 3 years really. That you could've earned.
Edurne: A lot, and I didn't even start building my list from the beginning, crazy don't do that.
Sylvie: Yeah.
Edurne: But as I mentioned before, doing one work is amazing, it's great. You get to work with people on a really, really deep level, but your hours are limited. I was actually, I'm not sure we mentioned this in our last interview, but I was actually very sick for quite some time, and I was bedridden and I wasn't able to do anything. So there was nothing coming in. I would've appreciated getting to where I was a couple of years ago before and knowing that there is a possibility of it's not really passive income. It is because you're sleeping and money is coming in but you've done a lot of work. You continue doing a lot of work and what you're doing to do is not only be able to help those however many people you get to see each week, but you're gonna multiply that and for me, that impact is huge, huge.
And I know some professionals especially in like the medical area, they have this fear about not doing that personalized work. And people need help, so people really need to be able to get to you and you can't multiply yourself. So seriously you don't need a website. You don't need anything flashy.
Sylvie: You just need to start and take action and also commit and be consistent. So one of those things is really Edurne has done the work every week consistently for years really. So that's incredible. That's incredible.
Thank you so much for sharing that Edurne. Really for being here, for taking time out of your busy day as a multiple 6-figure business owner. To really share that with people and inspire other people to really not make excuses and just start from wherever they're at. So I really appreciate you.
Edurne: Thank you Sylvie.
Sylvie: So if you want to find Edurne's incredible website, incredible work, her website is evamuerdelamanzana.com. I will definitely spell that out and link it up below this video, and if you want to start just start from whatever you are at, whatever it is that you have to offer. Whatever change you can make in the world, whether it's on health, or on wellness or any other how-to topic, book a call with my team and we'll figure out if we can help you. The link to book a call is sylviemccracken.com/call. We have some of the most incredible team members that will help you figure out where your business is now, what you want it to get to. If we can help, we'll totally show you the way. If not, we'll let you know that as well, but either way it will be an hour focused on your business and what's going on. The link again is sylviemmccracken.com/call and we look forward to seeing you soon, bye!
